Jantsen's Gift A True Story of Grief, Rescue, and Grace

Nine years ago, Pam Cope owned a hair salon in a tiny town in Missouri. Her life revolved around her son's baseball games, her daughter's dance lessons and trips to Disney World. She had never been out of the country, nor had she any desire to travel far from home. Then in 1999, her life changed forever when her 15-year-old son died unexpectedly. Needing to get far away from everything that reminded her of her loss, she accepted a friend's invitation to Vietnam and, from the moment she stepped off the plane, everything she had been feeling began to shift. By the time she got home she had a new mission: to use her pain to change the world, one child at a time. Today, she is the mother of two adopted Vietnamese children but more than that, she and her husband have created a foundation called "Touch A Life", dedicated to helping desperate children in countries as far-flung as Vietnam, Cambodia Ghana. Her story is on one level a moving, personal account of loss and recovery, but on a deeper level, it offers inspiration to anyone who has ever suffered great personal tragedy or those of us who dream about making a difference in the world.

In 2000, Pam Cope founded Touch A Life Foundation by establishing a shelter in Saigon for homeless children. Touch A Life now supportsover 200 children in Vietnam and helps fund the Place of Rescue in Cambodia, a safe haven for famillies who have been stricken with the AIDS virus. Pam lives in Texas with her family. Aimee Molloy is a freelance journalist and the co-author, with Senator John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry, of This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for The Future; and For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire with James Yee. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.